Ayiti Mon Amour (2016)
Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: The Andromeda Strain, Ayiti Mon Amour, Shortcut to Happiness.
The Andromeda Strain
If the secret laboratory in The Andromeda Strain (1971) resembles a planet-bound set from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s because the films shared visual designer Douglas Trumbull, whose future included work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner.
Instead of venturing into space as in 2001, space comes to Earth in The Andromeda Strain when a deadly microorganism arrives on a fallen satellite. Everyone dies horribly in the remote town where the satellite crashes—except an infant and an old drunk. The story focuses on a team of scientists racing to crack the organism’s code and discover why two such opposite people survived. Based on a Michael Crichton novel, the sci-talk is actually plausible and the setting—with Siri-like voices, touch screen computers and a U.S. president who doesn’t trust scientists—is prophetic. Director Robert Wise’s remarkable Hollywood career spanned science fiction, film noir, horror and musicals.
Ayiti Mon Amour
An award-winning favorite on the film festival circuit, Ayiti Mon Amour (2016) is visually and narratively poetic. Prolific Haitian American director Guetty Felin focuses on a bookish, sensitive teenager coming of age in a country afflicted by disaster. The earth and sea have shifted, the rhythm of life is upset and in the background of this allusive tale is poverty and protest. Ayiti Mon Amour was filmed in Haiti with a local cast and crew.
Shortcut to Happiness
Mephistopheles is a sultry woman in this mildly amusing Faustian bargain of a struggling writer (Alec Baldwin) who trades his soul for success in a pact consummated by sex. Shortcut to Happiness (2007) is a spoof of hypocrisy and pretention and—especially—of slogan-slinging marketing and the grinding (soul-stealing?) machinery of celebrity. The particle of anticipation hangs from whether the writer will escape his fate with the help of his distinguished publisher (Anthony Hopkins).
